


submit for salvation

by Pinnacle of Failure (Cromirn)



Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe, Blood, Canon-Typical Violence, Depression, Dissociation, Dissociative Identity Disorder, Gen, Gore, Graphic Description, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Incomplete, Murder, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, References to Depression, Reincarnation, Self-Doubt, Self-Esteem Issues, Self-Hatred, Self-Sacrifice, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-08
Updated: 2019-06-08
Packaged: 2020-04-23 03:34:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,137
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19142728
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cromirn/pseuds/Pinnacle%20of%20Failure
Summary: "That's the thing about depression: A human being can survive almost anything, as long as she sees the end in sight. But depression is so insidious, and it compounds daily, that it's impossible to ever see the end. The fog is like a cage without a key. "--Elizabeth Wurtzel





	submit for salvation

**Author's Note:**

> To be fair, I haven't seen much of this fic in many months now. If I've missed a few tags, just tell me.
> 
> This is a pseudo-abandoned work at the moment. Perhaps one day I will find the inspiration to continue this, maybe not.
> 
> Feel free to take inspiration from this.

Hinata is dead. A spear through the throat and Neji a second late.

Sakura weeps, her blinding tears nothing in the moment of battle. It means even little when Ino loses half of her, blond hair dyed pink with her own blood, face down in the black soil, darkened with drying blood.

She weeps, blood to her elbows, drying at her fingertips, flaking, smeared on her face as she sobs. Tenten is defeated by her own blades, a sword imbedded in one of those beasts impaling her as it falls from above. Naruto is no better, his rasengan burning his hands in his rage to control his chakra, knuckles stripped to the bone and his arm burnt to his shoulders.

This is war, and the sky is cornflower blue.

Neji is next, in a rushed mission to avenge his cousin, to take her name in honor and to make the murderer the murdered. His eyes bleed a gross olive green as the fuuinjutsu on his forehead dissipates, the ink staining his tears black. He is not happy, but the sky reigns bright above him, nary a cloud in sight.

Shino is swallowed in his own desperate need to keep Kiba safe, the last thing in his life together. Akamaru loses a leg and a part of his tail, as well a part of the flesh of his face, but he lives. Kiba’s body is scattered throughout the field, and half of Shino’s beetle population doesn’t make it. When Sakura gets to him, an eye gone, his legs are shriveled red and bleeding a clear, thick puss, and a portion of his right arm follow suite when a part of him sees the condition of Akamaru.

It rains only once, the skies a light grey, the high temperatures moistening their food and growing mold in the most curious of places.

Choji suffers from some disease Sakura can’t name. He eats, but it doesn’t stay long enough for him to use his Clan Techniques, and he isn’t getting enough nutrients to sufficiently keep himself running. He becomes anemic, eventually, he loses weight and becomes pale. He trembles like the leaf he once stood proud of, like the name he fought for. 

Shikamaru dies off somewhere remote, under the snow with a hoard of those white creatures with him in an avalanche. No one can tell what came first; the suffocation or hypothermia.

Sakura resigns from her medical duties after cutting him open to retrieve a piece of paper he had swallowed before death.

The next death is Kurenai, her daughter barely a year old. Shikamaru’s mother takes Mirai in, sobbing as she holds the child in her arms. It is what is left of her son, of Ino, and what remains of Choji.

Next, is Gai and Lee. They demolish beast after beast, and the two of them take out well over a quarter of the total assumed population. Their skill was unmatched, but eventually, like everyone else, they fell in a glory unmatched.

Sakura sees this all with wars eyes, cataloging it all, compartmentalizing it until all she has is information and D.O.Ds. Until all she is is information and dead. She is finally numb, and it hurts.

She is dead, but she doesn’t know it yet.

Tsunade requests to see her one day. Sakura doesn’t know how long it’s been since she’s last seen Master Tsunade, but the relief she expects doesn’t come, the calm that emits from the blondes aura isn’t there. It’s gone, she can’t feel it, and it weighs down on Sakura.

“You need a break,” She says, hand on hip and a fortified look on her face, “You have five healing fractures on your ribs, your broken hand healed wrong, and the same goes for both ankles, your chakra abuse has fried your lungs, and the only thing keeping you alive is a fucking miracle.”

Sakura can’t make any words, but she opens her mouth. “I’m fine, Master Tsunade,” She wants to say, “I can take a week long leave and I’ll be on the frontlines again.” she imagines herself saying it, but her jaw shutters close and she wracks a heaving sigh. It does hurt, it’s taxing on her in more ways than she thinks.

“And don’t get me started on your mental state,” Tsunade hisses, “I don’t have to be a Yamanaka to see what shit you’re thinking right now.”

She nods along, given up, let down by herself, by the war, by Konoha.

Tsunade’s hand is surprisingly light against her back as she helps Sakura off the steel table, and guides her to the back exit. “I don’t want to hear you on the frontlines until you are sound enough to act human again. In Konoha, you’re a civilian, not a shinobi of the war. Until I see you act like what you are here, I will grant you limited access back in the battlefield.”

The door closes with a heavy slam, and Sakura silently thanks Tsunade for leading her here, away from the clusterfuck in the front.

Two days later and one cleaned apartment, Sakura has nothing to do. Books are out of the question, her mind impatient towards the stagnant words. She needs something to look at, she needs something to do.

So, she heads out. 

The sky is a cornflower blue, and she ignores it.

The civilians wonder ambly about, bumping into each other and ignoring it, going from one place to another. Living in peace. Somehow, this is not normal.

“Hey,” A startling voice comes from her right, and Iruka appears next to her. “Hey,” he says again, “How are you?”

Her tongue is heavy, and her jaw locks. She hums in response, bobbing her head. She sees a wide-eyed Konohamaru next to him.

“I know,” He says, looking away in thought, then looks back at her, “Well, I don’t know, but I understand. Kakashi came in a week or so ago, it doesn’t seem like it’s going well out there.”

“Yeah,” She manages, “It’s not going so well.”

“Konohamaru and I are going to Ichiraku’s to meet up with his friends, would you like to come along?” Iruka asks, taking a step back and motioning to the younger boy.

“Yeah,” she mutters, looking down at her clean shoes. Her clean pants.There’s no grim underneath her fingers, but she still picks at them.

“Come on,” He whispers, and places a hand on Konohamaru’s back, and leads her to the almost surreal restaurant. 

It’s not like what she remembered. There’s no noisy ambiance, the gentle clanking. It’s all loud, her ears ring and she swears she can hear the heavy panting of a man dying, or the moans of a woman in pain.

“We’ll have the usual,” Iruka tells to Ayame, who looks worse for wear. She dutifully nods her head, and leaves for the back. Konohamaru keeps looking over his shoulder looking for his friends, but Sakura believes that there is something else she should be worried about.

“Where is Teuchi?” Sakura asks, taking her place between her old sensei and Konohamaru. “It doesn’t seem like business has been bad recently, and he doesn’t like missing out on caring for his customers.”

Konohamaru shifts in his seat, “Teuchi-san hasn’t been well lately. With all of our ninja medics out in the field, it’s been hard to find anything of quality out here. Once I pass my chunin exams, I should be able to go out and at least help, y’know?”

She has to stare at him, and he seems to get the hint. War isn’t something you want to participate in, she wants to tell him, War isn’t something that anyone should participate in. 

“Konohamaru, I’m sure Sakura-san’s sick of hearing about things like that. Why don’t you tell her about the news about your team, instead?” Her old sensei says, a light, scolding tone just on the tip of his tongue.

“Yeah!” the boy exclaims, looking at Iruka, then snaps his attention to Sakura. “So! So, we’ve this thing that Ebisu-sensei has been trying to teach us, but we refuse to learn it! Well, that’s what we have him thinking, at least,” he lets out a laugh, and at this point she’s stopped listening, knowing what he will say by the sheer force of similarity he is to Naruto.

She wonders how Naruto is doing these days, with Sasuke dead, with everyone dead.

“-and he doesn't know yet! What kind of jounin teacher is he when he doesn’t know what we know, isn’t it, like, apart of the system? Is there quizzes that you gotta take to teach specific kids?” Konohamaru continues, and something begins to drag down the air, and Sakura can feel herself ready for a fight. It’s chakra, thick and heavy, and it blankets the area, and she knows that someone is scoping Ichiraku’s, looking for something hostile, something abnormal. She retracts her chakra coils as much as she can, slithering into the places where the other chakra isn’t touching.

The flaps are lifted silently, and Sakura cranes her neck back to see, knowing how civilian the action is. This is Konoha, she tells herself, this is Konoha, you are not going to get hurt. You are safe.

Deep, dark bags rest underneath Kakashi’s eyes, his hair is not as clean as it was, and there is no bright orange book in his hand. His hands are empty, his holsters filled. He is ready.

Iruka looks over, and warily smiles, “Kakashi, what are you doing here?”

“I noticed that Sakura was here before she decided to hide herself. I wanted to- I wanted to see how she was.” Came his curt reply.

“Hey,” She mutters, turning to face him fully. “It’s been quite some time, yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“Come join us, Kakashi,” She motions for him to sit next to her, “I’m sure that you’d like to hear about my recovery and whatever.”

A look crosses his eye, and Kakashi looks down and away. “Recovery?”

She lets out a soft chortle. “Yes. Recovery. Like you, you know. Nothing physical, just a lot of chaos and everything else.”

“I know that,” he then says. 

“Join us, Kakashi-san,” Iruka comes up again, and Kakashi finally slides into the seat next to Sakura. “It’s been different lately, right?” He says to Sakura.

“Yes,” She says, “The medical staffing has been lacking as far as I could tell, not as many medical shinobi as there was before I left for active duty and there seems to be more apprentices per teacher than there should be. Maybe I am seeing things, or I’m just… not adjusting right, but I’ll be seeing a Yamanaka tomorrow to talk about that.”

“Oh?” Iruka inquiries lowly, “Do you know who will be taking you?”

A face crosses her mind and she looks down, pressing her lips together in a thin line. “I don’t know.” 

“I know it’s hard,” Kakashi starts, voice almost as firm as it was when he was still her sensei, years ago, “But you’ll find a way to realize that you had no power at the time. It is one of the many flaws that are bred in shinobi, especially for ones with civilian backgrounds like you. You are given this power that you never could imagine, and you use it so often that it becomes a second habit for you to use and when the moment comes where you are weak, useless, frightened, you slip up. Someone dies. You blame yourself. But don’t let it haunt you, you did nothing wrong and there is no way to get them back. You can’t sell yourself for your salvation; it is impossible.”

Sakura grimaces. Her eyes burn. “I know I did nothing wrong, but I could have done something. For her, for all of them.”

“It’s that mindset that has hurt me, like all of the others that has left for the war,” Kakashi continues, “Don’t sell yourself out because of something that you did or didn’t do.”

The soft clinking of ceramic against wood disrupts her train of thought, and Sakura sees Ayames soft face. “Here you go,” She murmurs before slinking away to another customer.

Konoha is different. It is safe, secure, but it is not what Konoha should be. It is not the place she calls Home.

The sun dips low eventually, and they depart from each others company. Sakura takes a slow walk home, one foot in front of the other, left, right, left, right, left. She moves forward, yet she can’t feel it. 

Tomorrow is no better. Noon is when she meets her psychiatrist for the first time but the sun never moves in the sky, time ticking eternally long. Her name is Ichiko, and she is not Ino. Therapy moves fast, Sakura struck into a dazed state not long after walking into that clinic.

Leaving is worse. A part of her begs to go back in, to look at that face that looks like Ino, to tell her how much she loves her. To cry in her arms. 

She is not Ino.

She is not Ino.

The sun is white, hanging high in the sky, beating down on the poor souls outside. Beads of sweat form at her temples, and she can feel her flesh just begin to burn. Sakura was never keen with the sun.

With nowhere left to go, she heads to the park. It’s empty, save for a few lone toddlers not far from the sight of their parents. Sakura heads over to the swings, and settles herself down quickly, fingers coiling in the chains and her mind completely out of it now.  
An hour passes when she awakes again, her mind groggy and slow. Sakura still sits in the swingset, and she can already feel the burn of the sun set into her skin. A distant rumble was what woke her.

There is a distant cry of pain, and she knows what it is like. Pained. Lost. Frightened.

This is not the battlefield, the thought a passing word in her recollections. This is Konoha. This is her Home.

Sakura’s body moves before her mind thinks it, hand gripping her outer thigh to reach her kunai, her shuriken. This is her Home, she need not such things in the safety of Home.

Another rumble to her left, then an explosion to her right. Screams, cries of help, wails of pain. Untrained Shinobi, she thinks, no, civilians. They are civilians. They have no such training as we had. 

A heat wave crashes into her, the rubble of the district flying, hitting her. Something digs into her shoulder just as she turns to protect her face. People run aimlessly in the roads, people stumble, fall, bring others down. 

She finds herself in the midst of it all, chakra surging in her veins and fists tight as the adrenaline runs through her blood. There seems to be no beginning to this madness, no source of destruction, no power behind the scenes. Sakura can sense something, but it’s not right, there is one source yet two energies, two bodies in one.

Like her.

Or, what she once was.

Frightened eyes are pushing all around, terror filling the breath of the weak, horror in the scent of the shinobi. It stirs something primal in her. The Pack Mentality. The fear. The energy.

In a hazy moment of blind, uncontrolled, emotion she sobs. Shoulders shake, lungs fill, eyes blinded by her own tears.

Dead, dying, she will die.

She will die like the rest of them all, she will seek her own deliverance from this word, and see what she has lost. Who she has failed. Betrayed.

This is her acquittal.

Her release.

Orange hair, dark eyes, blood on their ebony cloak. She has found her anomaly. He walks with an air of purposeful ignorance, uncaringness to the destruction he has caused. The blood in her mouth is no more than a metaphor now, but soon it will be true. She leaps forward, reaches a fisted hand out, and he barely dodges with a plume of ancient wars surrounding his being. He is better than her, faster, perhaps stronger, but she is smart, clever. Backup is coming. It is, she knows it.

Down and under, leg up, out, in, twist. He counters her attack with a swipe of a gloved hand, piercings on his face glistening in the dusty sunlight. Sakura leaps back, then forward again, left swipe, right uppercut, duck, down, lower, leg out, in, leap back. Repeat.

He follows this simple regime, but his body is to hard for her fist to dig through, too fast for her to sever the connection in his arms and legs. Too strong for her to actually win. Backups will be arriving soon, she knows it.

A scowl is impermeated on her face now, and she knows that she won’t last long. She is weak in the moment, like all of the others. Her strength comes in theory, in hypotheses, all under the fact that she can demolish her teammates in a battle to surrender, never in death. On the battlefield, she is all that and more.

The man bares his teeth at her, orange hair burning bright in the sunlight. His hands form into a series of seals, and a black of thin smoke blinds her for a mere heartbeat. Daggered teeth sink into her calf, and she grabs its ear with one hand and pulls while the other slaps down on her thigh again, momentarily that she doesn’t have her fucking weapons and why isn’t she prepared.

Thick blood warps its way down to her feet, distorting her socks and seeping into her shoes. They squelch when she adjusts her stance and throws the beast to the wall and leap forward again. This time, she makes it. His face cracks under the pressure of her fingers, bain matter spraying and eyes popping. His metal piercings did nothing but aid her in desire to hurt him, to make him feel pain again.

The connection lost between summoner and summon, the creature poofs out of existence.

Coiling her chakra, she releases a wave of healing chakra down to her pulsing leg, tightening the muscle as the flesh closes and the bleeding stops. She breathes in, then out. In, out. In, out.

“I am surprised that your fight with him was so quick,” A voice whispers in the wind, “Yet so bloody.”

There is a howl of an animal, and the ground underneath her crumbles(The fucking sewers, who would go in the sewers? Who!) Her heart leaps to her throat and her gut coils inside of her, the sickening feeling lost as she smacks into the ground and something cracks her skull. She bleeds more, the wound pulsing and bleeding and it wont stop, she panics, she can’t lose this much blood she needs to help she needs-

Sa-su-ke.

He stands above her, shadow short in the noon sun but his presence looming. Red eyes stare down at her, his eldritch cloak a seething melody in her soul.

He is here to kill her. 

Her world twists as she makes her way to stand. She pushes more chakra into her skin, again closing her wounds. Where is everyone. Why hasn’t she seen another shinobi.

“You are going to die, Sakura.” His cloak bellows as the wind pushes past, raising clouds of dust and debris. “It should be an honor, being the first one my hand has taken in Konoha.” he admits, his gaze solidifying. 

Sakura senses a genjutsu being casted on her, and is quick to break it with a burst of chakra. Her stores are being depleted, she doesn’t have enough. She isn’t enough. “I’m not going to die. I’m not going to be let down by you again.”

Sasuke laughs, his mouth coiling into a cruel grin baring his teeth. “We will have to see about that, then.” He is in front of her faster than anything she’s seen, even in the midst of an unnatural war. His chokuto is unsheathed, deep into her abdomen. Her guts curl uncomfortable, and biles rises in her throat, the tinge of blood becoming more and more obvious as the wound on her scalp begins to fall down her face leaking into her eyes and mouth.

She chokes. Falling, she falls and there is no one to catch her. Hope, there is no hope, there is only no hope when there is no chakra. Where is her chakra, her lifeline. WHERE IS IT.

Her flesh burns as her thick blood pools down, but her chakra becomes the antithesis to her, it is cold and sharp, healing opposed to the breaking. Sasuke leaps back from her, and she reaches out far enough to grip at his cloak, yanking him back closer to her. His eyes widen just enough for her to catch, his surprise evidence as she plants a solid fist to his face. Sasuke is thrown back just as the ground trembles violently. He laughs as he hits a broken building.

“You think You have gotten stronger, do you not?”

“It’s not like this, Sas-”

“It is like this, though,” he tells her, “You are alone, you have always been alone even in the most crowded places. You cannot separate yourself from the other world, can you, the one where you have died, the one where you have bleed for far too long on the cold ground.”

The sky blaires a bright blue, and she ignores it. His eyes are red, hair black, face pale and empty. This is not Sasuke. Her chakra thrums beneath her skin, she knows this isn’t a genjutsu, but this… this person is Sasuke, not the one she knows, the one she loves.

“We have all been dead for a long time, Sasuke,” She says, voice strong and high, “we haven’t realized it yet.”

Her eyes are opened now; it is all but mere fate that she realized this in this moment, her breath solid and unwavering. A chortle escapes her, “We are all dead! Don’t you see that, Sasuke? Don’t you see the blood, the bones, bile and feces? It’s everywhere, we breath it in, we let it in our souls, we accept it as life when we are nothing more than an imagination shoved in a decaying flesh bag, only to perish in a useless war.”

Sasuke opens his mouth for a loud cackle, “That is what I like to hear,” he growls out, “Let me take that little imagination out of you, then.”

He takes a leap at her, a burst of chakra from his feet to accelerate his speed eats most of the distance between them. She is prepared for this, he will die by her hand, but her chance of getting out alive is slim. It is the only possible outcome beside running. Sakura will not run.

Blue cackles from his fist, blindingly silver, white slivers of pain, ‘shannaro!’, chests caving in, blood on her fist, her fist through him, his fist through her. Warmth in the frost, eyes closing, no more red, no more ache.

 

~~~

 

Sakura was climbing the tree when she slipped, her poor attempt of hiding from her teammates lacking in fruition or motivation. They wont hurt her, she knows, the luck of being the only girl in an all man squadron, she supposes. The thing that did hurt her, however, was the rock obscured by the foliage, a small jagged edge of which she had smacked her skull into.

She knew she got a concussion the moment her vision cleared from the stars. There was blood leaking into her eye, the sharp, jagged wound on her forehead weeping as if she had just insulted its mother. Sakura feels no pain though, she hasn’t shed a tear, and the only sweat on her is what she had before falling. The world tilts for a moment, and she attempts to stand. The ringing in her ears get a little louder, but she ignores it.

She has to tell Kakashi-sensei of her condition, now. Something in the back of her mind moves, almost like what Inner would do yet… yet Inner doesn’t inhabit that part of her mind. It’s probably the concussion. Concern flashes through her before it’s squashed, and she makes way to where Kakashi is always positioned.

He sits there, orange book in his face, his lone eye ambiently reading the words.

“Uhm,” She starts, “Kakashi-sensei, I feel and hit my head so I think I should take a small break, y’know.”

“Oh?” He inquires, his eye lifting from his book, straight to her bloodied face. “Well, that doesn’t look good.” Folding his book and placing it in the vext pocket, he brings his hand to her face and presses on the wound. She hums, feeling the sting of his finger, but other than that she doesn’t hurt.

“I have a concussion, by the way,” Sakura mentions.

“I guess you can sit around, close your eyes, do whatever.”

Sakura sighs, “Can I go home, then? I have to tell my mom that I hit my head, she won’t like it the longer I wait to tell her.” It is a lie, something niggles again in the back of her mind, and she knows that this isn’t Inner, she doesn’t act like this.

Kakashi shifts where he stands, and raises an eyebrow that tells her ‘cool, do whatever. I don’t mind’. “Maa, go ahead. It doesn’t look like it would need stitches, but I suggest disinfecting it and covering it up. Change it every day or so just so the moisture doesn’t cause an infection, and you’ll be jolly.”

A smile breaks her face, “Thank you, Kakashi-sensei!” And she’s off again, easily forgetting about the blood on her face.

She makes it halfway home when she looks up into the sky. Cornflower blue. The sun burns the blood on her face, and she hastily wipes it all off, forgetting that she wears white sleeves.

It’s so blue, her mind screeches and something pulses there and she stumbles. She has to get home, to hahaue and chichiue. They know what to do, they always know what to do with her headaches, she trusts them with this.

Why does she trust them? They are her parents, she trusts her parents why would she need to doubt them.

The front door is unlocked--which is usual--and flutters quickly to the bathroom, ignoring her father in the living room. He doesn’t say much to her, so she’s not surprised that he had not even lifted his eyes to look at her from his newspaper. Her mother ignores her in the kitchen as well, the wall that divides hitting a nerve in her mind.

Another headache splits her mind, and Sakura uses the wall to support herself from falling. 

She’s in her room now, but it’s too bright, too different. The walls are to far apart, and the floor is softer than she remembers. It smells like her room before the invasion, before her home was destroyed and parents killed.

Where is she, why can’t she remember this? What invasion? Her parents can’t be dead, she just saw them downstairs. Where are these thoughts coming from?

Blood, teeth, it’s all over her, some of its hers and some of it’s others, the vision is strong enough for her guts to curl inside of her and she can taste the acid in her throat. She sees greens and reds, browns muddles with flesh and blood and white. 

She doesn’t wake up until noon the next day, her night curled in a corner sobbing as she sees those images, the death, the blood, it’s her fault they’re dead she could have done more she could have been faster more aware. Her eyes are the color or her hair, and she tells her parents she is sick. She doesn’t know what to tell Kakashi-sensei, how to get to him. 

It’s quiet at home, but it is the kind of thing she needs right now. She doesn’t know what to do, how to handle this. Something- something tells her that this is what needs to happen, that this is good for her.

That she is calm, breathing, healthy. Alive.

‘Calm down,’ something slithers besides her, so real she twists and turns out of her own bed, ‘You are so loud.’ It doesn’t speak, but she knows what it means. The insinuations, the soft nudges towards certain thoughts.

Nothing rests near her, but there is a creaking in her head and she can’t tell where it comes from. An overbearing sense of calm and paranoia settles over her like a blanket, and something grasps her chakra by its metaphorical neck smothering it until nothing more than a smideon than what it was once inside of her.

‘So loud, what have I done to myself, my body?’ it howls, obviously annoyed as ripples of seething anger races through her veins, ‘an attack and I am reduced to a sniveling mess again, this has to be a genjutsu. This has to be.’

“What,” Sakura croaks, “Who are you, where are you?”

Confusion, and then she blacks out. 

“Well,” she says, but her lips don’t move yet they do, someone is controlling her. It’s dark here, and she is getting scared, “This is… different.”

‘You are… Sakura, right?’ the voice crosses her mind, and she tries to speak, but her voice is taken. ‘This will complicate things.’

And like that, she is back in control again. All she has to say to that is “What the fuck.”

The rest of the day is spent locked in her room, shoving those images of the sky and earth far down possible, trying to remember her friends faces alive and healthy and happy but all it does is send her into a deeper spiral of sadness and paranoia. 

‘They are not alive, not any more, not for me. Appreciate their faces while it lasts. I won’t stay around for forever, and neither will you.’ it croons somewhere in her room, underneath her bed, in her closet. ‘Love them, cherish them. Keep them home, never let them go.’

“I don’t know what you want!” she screeches, clutching her head, “Why are you here, what do you want from me, leave me alone go away go away go AWAY!”

“Sakura?” her mother calls, voice approaching her closed door, footfalls heavy and hurried, “Who’s in there with you?” The door opens, and Mebuki pulls ahead scanning the room with untrained eyes, “What’s wrong, honey?”

Sakura begins to sob, the tears scorching down her face, “It hurts, hahaue, it hurts and I don’t know what’s wrong, I can’t- I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what to do.”

‘Don’t fool yourself,’ it haunts inside of her head, ‘you know what to do, you have done it so, so many times before.’

Images of feeling the chakra within her becomes so real she reenacts them, her mother comes closer to hold her child but Sakura stands. Fists are closed, and she sees. 

She isn’t Haruno Sakura, the top of her class bested by only Yamanaka Ino, daughter of Mebuki and Kizashi Haruno, anymore, she is Haruno Sakura, top jounin just behind Mitarashi Anko, heir to the Senju name and legacy.

It’s hard to say what hurts the most: seeing Sasuke’s face, illuminated blue by his standard Uchiha attire and the river that they face, or the fact that she is twenty three years old and has been reduced to a bumbling genin again.

Here is the thing about being born civilian: she was born in an uphill battle against her. Even when she was young and naive she knew she was placed at a disadvantage, yet she pushed on, her stupid(stupidstupidstupid) little heart kept her going. Maybe she should stop, slow down, become a civilian and own her own little tea stand, she has always been great at mixing herbs for her patients, as well as friends and family to ease their aching joints. She know a few tricks to make them sweet and honeyed.

But she needs to eliminate the causes of her current woes: Danzo, ROOT, the Akatsuki, Orochimaru. So on and so forth.

That brings up- how will she get stronger faster? And who will she take out first? Danzo, by far, seems the most reasonable, he’s right at home, easy to find and she knows how to mimic a heart attack. He is old, and right at her doorstep. But what will she do about ROOT, and- and what about Sai. She knows he is in ROOT right now, and she loves him too much to kill him again. To see him dead.

“Oi! Sakura-chan, get outta your head and come join us!”Naruto screeches across the field, little red lines up and down his arms as he carries the weeds in his muddied hands, “There’s more over here than we thought and you look just about done anyhow.” His smile is so bright and innocent she wonders how she ever was able to forget it.

A smile crosses her face, “Alright,” she mutters, just enough for him to hear, tossing her lumps of weeds in her potato sack and making her way towards Naruto. Sasuke stands far off in her peripherals, his gaze almost empty as he contemplates whatever an Uchiha can contemplate.

Going back to D-ranks after being in a continuous state of mental decay and secret, probably A- or S- rank missions is something that she never thought she would feel again. It’s calming, repetitive behaviour she finds soothing.

Naruto doesn’t think so, and this is how they get their first C-ranked mission.

And, of course, it goes to shit. 

Complete, and utter, utter shit.

It’s also when Sakura begins to regularly meditate, the only uninvasive, jutsuless thing she can do to expand her chakra pools. They don’t even leave Konoha before Naruto says something that has Sakura sobbing at her doorstep, mother in the back sighing in annoyance and her father shaking his head.

“So soft,” her mother mutters, as she pushes Sakura out of the doorway to close the door. “So innocent.” ‘So useless’ left unsaid.

It may have been a few years since she’s last seen her parents, but she remembers what they were like. Merchants who can’t drag their daughter around on their travels might as well not have a daughter anymore.

Sakura is deep in thought when Kakashi is torn threw, his body a dramatic explanation on how a simplistic genjutsu can throttle her skull.

The fight is quick and anticlamatical compared to how she remembers it, Naruto gasps, Sasuke hisses, Sakura stands back and protects Tazuna.

It is… saddening when she spots an opening, close enough that she won’t even move away from Tazuna, yet still participate in the fight that Sasuke gives her a Look that she knows pretty well. The brother bleeds, and that places a target on her back by the other, and she wants that, the fighting and the adrenaline, the rush of dodging a potentially fatal hit, the smell of sweat and fear and a highness that no drug could ever reach.

After, Kakashi interrogate Tazuna, and they push on.

Sakura knows that he is pushing his limitations as team leader, and now with the eyes of a worn veteran she knows that this could call for grounds of dismissal on the fact that Kakashi did not report the poison in Naruto’s system, fluffy fox or not. There still lies the chance that thing changed when Sakura became aware of all of these things, but it still rubs her the wrong way regardless.

When they move on, get in a boat and begin their way to Wave, Sakura realizes that she is wrong about a lot of things. Retaining youth does not make her innocent; it has made her paranoid, incessantly checking her surroundings in a fit of unease and trained behaviour that has left her with an impending sense of dread at the base of her stomach.

It is not a life she wants to live anymore.

They meet Zabuza not long after they reach land, her sandals sinking into the slick mud underneath, while it seems that Tazuna has bested them at one thing: walking on mud, although it seems that his is more of habit while Kakashi uses his chakra. Zabuza is a man of muscle, the sword feeling like it weighed nothing as he holds it with a seemingly light grip.

His smile can be seen through his mask. 

“Ha-ta-ke,” he drawls, the air around becoming still, and a feeling of peace nestles quietly besides the dread and doom. “I have heard many, many unkind words about you, you know. The techniques you have stolen, that assasination style you have made to fit you. Your dead comrades.”

Naruto trembles besides her, and Sasuke is frozen still. Kakashi stands in front of them, and she almost forgets about Tazuna as he stands behind, his breath hidden in his anxiety.

“I find it a shame that a shinobi like you has decided to take up a life like this,” Kakashi starts, and slowly takes out a kunai(like that would stop that fucking cleaver, the fool), “I’m sure that you would have been a nice opponent in a setting much different than this. But, I must warn you that my priority still remains to my comrades not my mission.”

Zabuza tenses, and he laughs. Sakura understands, but she knows that she should fear what he could do to her, to her teammates.

There is a disconnection to her and her teammates, and she doesn’t know what to think about it.

“I was once a shinobi of the mist, our loyalties reside in the strong,” Zabuza growls out, “But they are all weak, and until someone who I can trust, who I know can destroy the world in their own rage, then I will return. But, now, in this moment, I am nothing more than a body for hire, and I am here for the builder.”

That definition sounds familiar.

“Well, you know we can’t.” Kakashi pulls out another kunai in his other hand, and prepares for a fight. “Like you, we are bodies for hire, but affiliating ourselves with a village has made our profession more secure than what you’re doing now.”

It sounds like Kakashi wants Zabuza to join a village again.

A dark look crosses Zabuza’s eyes, and Sakura remembers what it was like when she was in the war, when people no longer had anything to keep them sane, the desire to burn the world. Bloodlust. He hoists his weapon up higher, and leans on on hip. His mask twists, he smirks.

Kakashi barely has the time to dodge, chucking his two kunai at the monster that is Zabuza.

Kubikiribocho takes the brunt of the damage, not even a little mark left behind with the force that Kakashi threw the projectiles. Zabuza takes a few large steps back before launching himself at Kakashi, blade pointed towards his abdomen.

He dodges faster than before, but he produces more kunai tossing and swiping at Zabuza. The former Kiri nin is a born and raised killing machine taught to play dirty--he slugs Kakashi with one arm, while the other makes a move to decapitate Kakashi.

It turns out to be a log, the residue smoke still hanging in the air as Zabuza’s eyes wildly skitter across the area. His body stiffens, preparing for a strike, and swings kubikiribocho upwards, Kakashi barely twisting out of the way in a show of agility and reflexes.  
Zabuza is strong, but Kakashi is fast.

There is a flash of white, untrained eyes unknowingly spotting the clash between lightning fast reflexes and intentions. They back off again, Zabuza twisting his blade with a keen look in his eyes, and Kakashi scuttles back in front of his little genin team.

“You have dented my kubikiribocho,” he preens highly, a glee in his eyes that shows the adrenaline rush thrumming through his blood, “And do you know what she needs to heal these bruises?”

Kakashi doesn’t lower his stance before his students. His grip on his kunai hardens.

Kakashi is fast, but Zabuza was underestimated.

There is a moment of stillness, of blindness and of ignorance. Zabuza leans forward, and he isn’t there anymore. Tazuna breaths in, Naruto screeches, and Sakura isn’t standing.

Dead, dying, screaming, and fleeing. Squad seven.

 

Sasuke is in the bushes. He knows it won't protect him, but after what Momochi had just done to the client, to Sakura, it would be a fools mistake to fight him.

She bleeds out, still breathing, in pain, scared, frightened. But that wound, he knows she won’t make it, he knows she will bleed out before any of them can reach her. Zabuza still stands over the clients shaking body, cleaver absorbing his blood, Sakura’s blood.

He doesn’t know where Kakashi is, where can he be, what is he doing in a time like this? This is urgent, this is- this isn’t real. This can’t be. It can’t be.

Sakura shouldn’t be looking like that, and Naruto- Naruto isn’t right. His aura shows through, red and sticky and all things unnatural yet natural. He is in pain, too, they’re all in pain and where the hell is Kakashi?

Like one of those slow motion movie scenes, Naruto stands, face warped and a snarl firm on his lips. His eyes are planted on Sakura, who trembles and bleeds and dies right before their eyes.

This can’t be real, it can’t yet he knows that she is at death's feet and Sasuke knows all too much of that. He has to do something, he can’t just sit here while their sensei is AWOL and Naruto ready to kill.

He has scrolls, shuriken of all sizes, he can use that, with his wires he can provide a distraction, maybe that will be enough for Naruto to get his shit together and bail. If Naruto is in the right mind to see what Sasuke is sacrificing for him, that is.

There is a moment of chaos, the red chakra disorienting, fire beginning to lick at Zabuza’s feet too close to the bodies, the familiar weight of the giant shuriken in his hands. He has not yet mastered them, but he feels that there nothing else to do against him, against the man that will kill Naruto and him, that has already killed Sakura and wounded their client. If Kakashi was too slow to catch him, to catch Zabuza, then there is no hope.

It is pointless to think there was hope to begin with, when it was first a show of strength, a pissing contest between the two greatest shinobi the Third Great War has to offer, a death wish for the children with silly fantasies weeping in the back of their minds.  
Kakashi is back, fighting Zabuza, on the offensive now opposed to the defensive he held at the beginning, movements sleek and efficient. His sandals are burnt at the edges, proof that he began the fire technique specialized for burning large areas of land. The fire begins to edge dangerously close to where Naruto seeths, hands holding tight on his face, a wild look in his slitted, animalistic eyes.

The fight is quick, Zabuza taken down by an unseen force, sparkling senbon glittering deep in his throat. A professional strike. 

“Ah,” A strangled acknowledgement leaves Kakashi’s throat, “Hunter nin, thank you for that. I assume you’re here for, uhm, Momochi. Yes, yes you are, take him. I have to- I have to deal with this, now.” His hand is thrown vaguely out behind him, where blood and body lay.

The masked figure appears next to the missing nin, and nods briefly at Kakashi before taking the body elsewhere with a speedy jutsu.

“NO!” Naruto screams, throat shredding and voice too loud for his body, “No! He has- he hurt Sakura-chan, he can’t just be dead like that! He can’t, he just can’t! It was too easy, too easy too easy this can’t I can’t-” he chokes off, breaking down in sobs. “It can’t, it just can’t.”

Kakashi makes a point to not look over where she still lays, sweat beading down his forehead and weighing down his hair. 

It reminds him of that day, her blood over the flora, seeping into the loose and damp soil, bringing in the scent of waves of flies and mosquitoes. He didn’t have to deal with that in Konoha, the time not right for the bugs and insects to come out like this, quickly, so soon after death, and he knows that even as annoying as she was she doesn’t deserve this.

Tazuna breathes in sharply, laying where Sakura was before… before what happened. In shellshock, civilians are as wild as a feral dog, narrow sighted and foaming at the mouth in fear or perhaps anger. Kakashi is quick to knock him out.

One moment Zabuza’s body was there, and the next, he was not. Kakashi sighs, and kneels on the ground planting a hand planted firmly, weighed down by exhaustion. Naruto screeches again, hands hiding the obvious anguish in his face.

“Sasuke,” he breathes, “Sasuke, we need- I can’t stay like this much longer. Get Naruto out, get him away from here and try not to be seen. Get to the village, bring Tazuna with you. He should wake soon, but don’t antagonize him. For the love of- channel chakra behind your eyes, you don’t want to be seen with that in town.”

“What-”

“Just do it, Sasuke, the sharingan doesn’t have the nicest reputation around here. Don’t bring up your names, either of you. I will be fine, but I need to sleep the exhaustion off. I’ll find you when I’m awake, don’t worry.”

“What.”

Even in his confusion and concern, he does as Kakashi says, and notices the difference between perspectives and clarity in his vision. Time moves fast again, and he stands further from Kakashi than he thought he was.

Something in the back of his mind tells him that that would be a flaw in battle, but he can’t think like that now, he needs to get Naruto out of here before he does something bad. 

Then it hits him. The sharingan, over this? Over her? But… this is good. This is what he wanted, even if it didn’t go like he imagined. But at what cost, he has to ask. A dead squadmate is no laughing matter. The other is slowly descending into a catatonic state. His squad leader is no better than them.

This is squad seven, and he knows it won’t last.

 

He knows what Sakura did. The timing, execution, deliverance, everything. He doesn’t know where she learned it, let alone found the time and dedication to train. There is no logical way a civilian could pull something like that off the way she did.

Had he been faster, quicker, he would have been able to prevent the strike at all, but one way went a clone and another went the living. The sharingan was feared for its prophetic deliverance in the field, but Zabuza was a smart man, feinting a hit disguised as a defensive block, using his intent to kill the man as a way to end the mission. Maybe he knew that something was off about Sakura, the way she held herself in the fear.

Maybe his intent was to kill two birds with one stone, even with Sakura’s substitution Tazuna was still struck. Even with her quick thinking, he’d been slow to comprehend what she’d just done. He’d been too ignorant of her skills as a shinobi, and now she is dead.

Naruto is not happy, his anger radiating off him in dizzying waves. He knows Naruto loves Sakura, but he hopes his love for Sasuke is enough to calm him down. There is no need to start an international incident over the death of a civilian girl.

 

SHE’S DEAD. DEAD. 

It hurts to breath, to think, to hold back on that thought that tells him to let go, to let the evil in the world dissipate in his rath. He doesn’t know what happened, but Sakura’s hurt, and Sakura gets angry when she’s hurt but she’s not getting up again. She’s not snarling as she pushes him down, or blushing at Sasuke, sweaty and ruffled.

She’s not moving, why’s she not moving? She has to move, she has to, she’s bleedin’ too much, she needs to see the nurse, it could get infected Sakura, I know you know this, Sakura-chan!

Sasuke is there, his eyes are different but that has to be normal, he thinks, it has to be because of Sakura. Naruto always knew that Sasuke had a small, a really really small soft spot for her, and he knows that this has to be traumatic.

“Come on, we need to get Tazuna here.” Sasuke doesn’t move like he used to. There is an edge to his voice. “K-Kakashi is going to take care of Sakura, I think.”

The red haze leaves him, for a moment. Finally! Something’s being done!

“Okay,” he manages, his tongue almost acting separate from him, heavy and dense, weighed down by the images still flashing in his mind, “Okay, l-let’s go.”

 

There is no life after death, yet here she is. In the body of what she once was, what was once her starting point in her career. She is alone, but she is alive. Breathing, bleeding, hurt, broken. This is what her life has come to, hasn’t it.  
This never ending cycle of death and hatred.

Sakura senses no one nearby, the remnants of Kakashi’s and Zabuza’s chakra still hang heavily in the air, but they’re all gone. She lies on her stomach, back bloodied and legs numb. Her chakra control is strong enough for her to connect the nerve ends together, restoring the feeling back in her legs, connecting bones back and creating more blood to help the flow back to her extremities. 

She still bleeds, and her chakra stores are still small, but she isn’t as much dead and gone as her teammates might think. The hit she took for Tazuna is fatal for any lesser shinobi, but she is Sakura, she had an extra on stage at that moment.

There is no longer naive Haruno Sakura, there is only the shell of a woman left inside this body.

She doesn’t know what time it is, the mist heavy in the air, but she doesn't need to know that. She needs the time to fix herself.

Slowly adjusting herself, her hands painfully reach back to stitch back the muscles in her back. It hurts, tears flow from her eyes steadily, but she doesn’t have the time to think about that, she needs to get better, as fast as she can, as effectively as she can.  
There is no use starting something just to end it in one misplaced calculation.

Honestly, she had not planned on making this mission through. 

It hurts, seeing his face again. All of their faces again. Young, expressive. It hurts, and there is nothing worse than knowing that they are what she can’t have. She can’t have them, because she knows too much, because she is broken in so, so many ways and there is no cure to her sickness. There is no cure for what she has become.

There is a broken rib somewhere inside her, shattered, actually. She does not have time no more. She can’t fix what she broke.

She knows that once she drags herself out of this, she will change the world. She will tear down what broke her before, and she will make them bleed, she will make them suffer even at the expense of herself. 

Her heart trembles in her throat as she stitches herself up some more, ignoring the pain, the aching, the blood on her hands that is hers. Swallowing down the sensation as much as she can, she digs her face up from the ground seeing for the first time in too long.

It’s dark, she can barely see past the clearing. The stench of blood overwhelms her, and she knows that it will bring dangerous animals towards her. The foliage is painted grey, and the treeline has a faint silver lining from the sliver of moon that hangs low in the sky. She doesn’t know if it rises or falls, but she doesn’t need to know that right now. She needs to get up, and she needs to get out as fast as she can.

There is a low hum in the air, the shifting of the fog, groaning trees, rustle of the leaves. It is a low, poetic, pathetic thing, the haunted sensation this place gives off, the hint of great battles still scarred into the land here. Chakra invests itself easier in the water, she knows, clinging to it like a child to its mother, like the flimsical desires many hold dear.

With quivering muscles she slowly lifts herself from where she lies. Sakura doesn’t want to work her legs just yet, but she will find a better spot to nurse herself to recovery. She doesn’t know where the rest of the squad is, but she hopes that they haven’t started their way back to Konoha just yet. The headstart should give her enough time to think properly.

 

“Zabuza is still alive,” Kakashi whispers, voice weak and trailing at the end, “And he will want to finish what he started…”

Naruto gasps soft at his side, Sasuke’s dark eyes following every movement of their teacher. 

“Because of what Sakura did,” Sasuke says sagely, as if to fill in that void where their lost teammate would have been. 

“I am weak, right now, and it’s too dangerous to request back up. I don’t know when he will be back on his feet, but I will need you two to be at your top shape in less than a week. Two, if we are lucky.” He continues, digging his head further into his pillow.

It is silent between them for a long moment. The floorboard creak as Tsunami bumbles around the house, and there is the distant chop of wood as Inari cuts the wood outside. Naruto plays with his hands, avoiding everyone's eyes, while Sasuke looks all too observant, the distant look in his eyes betraying his intentions. Kakashi is all too much in his mind, rethinking his decisions.

“Naruto, Sasuke,” Kakashi starts, pushing the blanket off himself as he slowly rises to sit, holding back a pained groan when he haunches over himself, “I will monitor you, and I will push you further than I have done before. This is a valuable learning experience-”

“Is a valuable learning experience watching your teammate die? Kakashi?” Sasuke snaps, red flashing in his hollow eyes a second too long, “Is watching her sacrifice herself for a low civilian everytime I close my eyes worth it? Or the smell of her blood and the obvious skill that was wasted because you didn’t want to train her like you did to us?”

He blames Kakashi.

“Because even I could see that she has something we don’t, even before all of this shit went down!”

He hasn’t sworn before.

“Is a valuable learning experience losing a valuable asset to the village, to ourselves, worth it?”

He is…

Angry.

Lost.

“Sasuke,” Naruto murmurs slowly, his voice a low rasp in the small, empty room, “I- it’s true, she- she did-” he cuts himself off there, sniffling as he rubs the tears out of his eyes. “I didn’t expect that out of her. It was a surprise, it was so quick, too. But…“ he holds his breath, “but I think Kaka-sensei is right. We need to get better, because… because I don’t want that to happen. I don’t want that to happen again.”

“It should not have happened to begin with!” Sasuke seethes, standing now, hands clenched tightly at his sides, “How could a renowned jounin not see what potential she has! Why does seeing her die now make me realize that she has something that I don’t? That I know I can’t have because she had so few opportunities than we did and yet she pushed through!”

“What she did was out of my hands,” Kakashi interjects, looking worse and worse at every moment.

“But what she did before this mission was,” Sasuke continues, “It was obvious that she wasn’t made out for this at first, but then she changed and she tried to put herself into training with us but you pushed her away.” He takes a step back, “She might still be alive if you’d just look at her.”

Kakashi looks away as if struck, closing his one eye with a pained expression enduring itself on his face.

“Sasuke!” Naruto cries out, voice loud and emotion clear. He is not happy. “Kaka-sensei tried his best and so did Sakura-chan, but sometimes things happen and someone gets hurt. We need to- you know what it’s like, don't you, Sasuke? I don’t think that even if Kaka-sensei trained her a little more would have changed anything!”

“Doesn’t it matter to you that she’s dead?” Sasuke snaps back.

“It-”

“Enough, boys,” Kakashi starts, “I will- we need to fix our priorities.” Finally, he is a teacher. This is a learning moment for the boys; no one lives forever, regardless of what hidden talents they might have had. His voice hardens, and so does his gaze, ignoring his pain, ignoring the obvious problem he has to this. “Sakura thought quickly, and for that she saved the mission. Even at the cost of her life, this is what the village wants more of: selflessness.”

Sasuke bristles, but Kakashi speaks before he is given a chance to open his mouth, “I know what my motto is, those who break the rules are scum, but those who abandon their friends are worse than scum. As a shinobi our first duty is to the state, not to the tool. It… hurts me to say this, but teamwork is important to Konoha, cooperation is important to Konoha, not the lives of the shinobi. Not the protection of the civilians.

But I’m not like that. I don’t want to be like that. Sakura… what Sakura did was out of my hands, out of any control I had. It’s important for you to see underneath the underneath, and apparently I failed that. Konoha is a militaristic state, but we are not and we must protect what little we can have.”

“So you’re saying Konoha doesn’t care about us,” Sasuke scowls, crossing his arms and taking another step back. He stands close to the door, now.

“You’re wrong!” snaps Naruto, his anger directed everywhere yet nowhere, here yet there, “Gramps does care! He’s the Hokage, it’s literally his job to care!”

“Idiot, that’s what he wants you to think,” Sasuke interjects, his head falling into his hands as he rubs his face, “He doesn’t have absolute control over Konoha, either. You should have learned this all in the academy, how he has a council and whatever.”

“Why would he need a council when he’s the strongest shinobi in the world!” Naruto cries out, almost outraged at what his supposed friend is suggesting, “Are you sayin’ that he can’t lead his country?”

“Just because he’s strong doesn't mean he’s free from corruption, stupid,” The venom in Sasuke’s voice hits a nerve in Naruto, but he only throws his hands out in a wild gesture as he continues, “He was born and raised in a shinobi clan, he needs the voices of civilians to encourage trade- why am I even talking to you, you’re not even listening.”

“YOU-!”

“Just- calm down, boys,” Kakashi finally breaks in, placing a hand on his forehead “We won’t be discussing this anymore.”

“Sasuke doesn’t understand-”

“Naruto, I said we won’t be continuing this subject, am I clear?” He shoots Naruto a look that suggests he listens or else. Naruto hesitates.

“Y-Yeah…”

“You will start training again tonight,” Kakashi continues, “I will tell you that I don’t care how you feel, because I do care, because I know what it’s like to be in this situation, but you can only go forward from here on out. You can’t just- you can’t keep chasing a dream, or wishing for a better.”

 

The sun finally rises, the first day. Sakura is not happy, nor is she sad. There is this fundamental structure within her that has been missing for years, she no longer needs to see the sun rise from the nestle of trees to know that hope is on the way. She doesn’t need to see the moon fall to know that it was her last chance. There is no hope, only chance.

There has always been an option to be better, and there is one now, but she can’t fathom how she will ever get back with her squad. She doesn’t know where they are, and she suspect that they think her dead. Such faith they have in her, something dark cackles in the back of her mind, to forget your strength, your weakness.

She was stupid, when she put herself there in front of that old man. She was stupid, for staying so still, when she knew she was well alive, when she believed that Kakashi would see her feigning death.

She is stupid, and there is no way of getting out now. She has lost many nerve endings in her back, and she knows it will take time for her to feel her toes again especially with how low her reserves are at the moment. Especially with how well she’s mentally fairing. She is not in peak health, she hasn’t been since the war started. 

Chakra is a manifestation of spiritual and physical strength, and the stress and weight that she had to carry with her strenuous involvement in the battlefield severely changed how she worked. At one point, her physical manifestation of chakra outweighed her spiritual. At one point, she had to be hospitalized and placed into an induced a coma to balance out those forces inside of her.

Ah, how she wishes she still had those safety nets to protect her from herself. Those things and people that had let her train herself into happiness, into contentedness.

By noon she had sorted herself into a position of trained safety, taking the nearest coverings to hide herself from the untrained and feral eye, chugging and filtering her chakra in and out of her body, sewing what was torn, tethering what was snapped. There is no good food that is easily accessible to her as of the moment, but the greens that lie around should be enough, albeit they lack the nutrients and proteins and whatever else to provide her anything outside of the quenching of the hunger in her empty stomach.

She knows that what happened to her must have scared the boys, her squad, but her conflicting memories tell her things that she hopes are not true. They should have retreated already, taken away back to Konoha to report her ‘death’. But they should have also come back for her ‘body’, see what a mess she’s become and fix her up better. 

She is not what she was before this, she was stronger, trained, a weapon tainted by war. This is a fatty body, very little muscle definition, soft, light, fragile. She can go on.

If Kakashi is heading back to Konoha, she must have enough time to take care of the situation in Wave.

By tomorrow morning, she should be well enough to start walking again, and the next day she plans on restoring her chakra storages. With that in mind, she closes her eyes with a pained grimace.

 

There is a certain aspect in life that he knows he is shielded from. This is a fact. He knows this, because the Hokage said that it is for his own protection. Everything is for his protection, isn’t it? Kakashi, the best black ops Konoha produced in the last war, the masked man in wolf's clothing, the man who can create miracles outta his ass, was chosen for him. For him, Uzumaki Naruto. For him, the last of an old tradition.

Hatake Kakashi was chosen for Sasuke as well, a strong shinobi to create another strong shinobi. A man with a secret so obviously hidden from them yet not of the teachers generation chosen to train a purebred Uchiha, to show him what he knows of this sharingan before he is given access to his clans historical memoirs, the ancient texts of their eyes, the musty papers only he can read.

But what of Haruno Sakura? What does she get? A sensei that fears the look in her eyes, the blood underneath her soft flesh? Two teammates that outclass her in many aspects that are wanted--needed--to be a proper shinobi, that share a heritage that she doesn’t. She has no secrets, she has no backup plan, no family line that will feed her and her children for generations, no special case that makes it mandatory that she must be under the constant gaze of the Anbu. She has nothing.

She is nothing.

With all that Hatake Kakashi is, he isn’t a good teacher. He knows how to train someone, but he doesn’t know how to condition someone to a position which they can get better from nothing, he doesn’t know how different a civilian child is of that a clan child is like.

He, Uzumaki Naruto, knows this. He, Uzumaki Naruto, has seen it.

He is unaware if Sasuke has, though. But he knows that the death, the loss, the murder, of their teammate is is wrong. He knows that Sasuke is saddened by her death, by the permanent vision of her burnt into his mind.

Kakashi is not unlike himself. He pushes them to train, to get better. It is like the usual, but without the keen gaze of the only female in their team and her voice calling out their flaws it doesn’t seem like it’s real anymore. What is missing, and why is it missing, his mind screeches out, he wants to get it back, to make it normal again.

The days move on, dragging him along the road of life that he no longer wants to be a part of anymore. Life without Sakura is not a life he wants to be a part of.

The sun rises, and she is not there.

 

A week passes, and he knows he has made a dire mistake. Sasuke refuses to talk to him. Naruto is an incoherent mess. Sakura… Sakura is like all the rest. Dead. Gone. Because of him.

They’ve gotten stronger in her absence, but he knows that her presence missing is not what has pushed them. 

They stand at the bridge, staring through the thick fog that rests above the bodies. A low hum of malignant chakra strings behind his eyes, knotting itself in his brain and breaking him further. The things alone only Zabuza’s chakra can do is magnificent.  
The man himself stands at the opposite end, the scent of construction and fear still hanging heavy in the air and debris frozen in time.

“I see that you have left one of your spawns back,” he sneers, mask wrinkling under the amusement in his face, “Such a pity, she could have fought well today.”

Kakashi swallows down the regret, the sorrow. “Don’t talk about the past, talk about the now.” He prepares himself, mentally and physically, ready to start. “Fight me, Momochi, and let us see who is the better. The stronger.”

Zabuza hums dangerously, low in his chest, the noise vibrating in the heavy mist, “I think I know who will win. A konoha Anbu commander with two little ducklings? Versus me and my arsenal. This is a fight you are not going to win, you should end it all before I show you the truth of the hidden mist.”

“I will take my chances,” he replies, risking a glance to make sure the boys are in tune with him. Naruto is… he is rough. Angry. Seeking his revenge. Sasuke is unreadable, but the distant look in his eyes are enough for Kakashi.

“Then let’s not waste any more time.”

They clash together in a blink of an eye, kubikiribocho swinging and shuriken drawn. They move fast, now knowing the once hidden potential the other holds within. As bland as Zabuza is he is strong and he is fast, build like a brick house and ready to set it aflame, with an intent to burn everything around him even if it costs his own harm.

A sharp inhale, flying artillery, white tags, swirls of fire follows. Sasuke moves behind Naruto, orange clones filling up the empty gray space, battle cries, poofs of appearing animal summons, the snarling of dogs.

They meet again, a diversion to protect the last Uchiha from a grievous death, Kakashi’s weight not enough to shake the cleaver out of Zabuza’s hands but just so that attention is changed. His hands come together for another, costly jutsu, water bullets springing from his mouth. Zabuza dodges with the grace of a fish in water, the all too familiar style not enough for him to break habit now.

Another force enters their engagement, one of unknown talent. This is Zabuza’s trump card, the one thing they cannot gather on and destroy. This is Zabuza’s weapon.

“Take the flashy one,” Zabuza’s hiss can be heard through the thinning fog, weaved through the sounds of fallen projectiles and heavy panting as the battle freezes for less than a second, “You know what to do.”

“Yessir,” the soft voice filters through quickly, showing no hesitation as the masked person makes through straight to Naruto quick and quiet. There is no memory of his body flashing past Naruto and right towards Sasuke, only the shrill cry of an animal and a thunder that cracks right through the concrete of the bridge. 

The battle resumes, but once again a new player emerges shrouded in a thick cowl. Smaller in stature than Zabuza’s weapon, Kakashi fears what has happened to this world. Small fists peak under the large sleeves to lay down another fierce lightning quick punch to the ground, right next to the unassuming kiri shinobi’s feet. Kubikiribocho is too slow to break down on the little shinobi, and Zabuza’s weapon too slow to land a perfect hit on them either.

Kakashi hadn’t sensed this person, and it’s almost as if they aren’t there at all their chakra mushed down so low that it has become dangerous.

Human snarls ripple through the air in frustration, low and guttural and all the things a human has no right to create.

“You were there for the death of Gato, you little creature,” Zabuza’s voice is loud and clear, his mist clearing away, “You took my only pay, I’ll have you know.”

The shrouded person shifts, body hidden to the world but their pancho shifting in the wind. An elbow juts beneath the fabric, and something is torn. 

“This is our fight, Zabuza,” Kakashi cries out, voice hoarse, “Leave the shinobi alone and let us see who is the better fighter!”

“We stopped fighting that fight when your little pets joined,” he snarls back, “Fusho is a fierce warrior, but he plays dirty. Dirtier than any of you Konoha soldiers would want to handle.”

Naruto stutters, “Fight us-”

“Shut up, you idiot!” Sasuke snaps back, eyes directed at Kakashi, seeking the next move.

“You killed my student, you have a price to pay,” Kakashi continues, readening himself for what is to happen next, “You will fight me, and if you won’t then you will die.”

Zabuza laughs. “All of your logics are flawed. If I fight you, I might die, but if I don’t then I will die. Does all Konoha shinobi have no common sense? I will fight you, and I will kill you, but not while Fusho is here so you must wait like the pretty Konoha soldiers you are and let me make this deal.”

Kakashi tries to speak, but his voice is shut down by Zabuza’s. “You will leave, and in return I tell no one who you are, little creature,” he starts, a vicious undertone in his words, “Kakashi is mine, I will tell the tool that, and no harm shall come to the boys. Do this for me and your little secret will stay that way.”

They don’t move. They don’t breath. The wind pushes past, and Kakashi believes this Fusho is a ghost, wisps of pale hair slip out underneath the hood bloodied by the mysterious history they hold underneath that heavy cloak. It is only by miracle that they move forward towards Zabuza, no intent clear in their actions.

The man's mask crinkles underneath the smile, changed from all that Kakashi has seen in the man before. “Good,” he starts, venom slowly leaking back into his voice “This will make things much more better for the all of us. Well, most of us.”

This is not good. All of the odds are stacked against him. A stranger under the thumb of Zabuza and an ulterior motive beneath that his status as mercenary, Kakashi knows he has to think, but what does he have that this Fusho may desire. He knows the bingo books, he knows that this Fusho is stranger than he thinks, yet he is not even mentioned in any files or complaints or any thing else. 

He is stuck against a hard place and a rock, he knows he won't be able to last long alone.

 

Sasuke is a mess. First it was Zabuza, just Zabuza, and then there was the deceiver, and now him. He doesn’t know who he is, shrouded in a dark cloth and never speaking, but he knows that this man is up to no good.

Something niggles at the back of his head to watch this stranger, to watch for unknown cues and to watch for.

But it doesn’t work that way. It never works that way.

 

Naruto is screaming. He isn’t screaming outwardly, but he might as well be with the rage that boils beneath his flesh. All of the odds are stacked against them, all of the odds of survival are against them, and he just wishes that Sakura was around. She is smart, she has always been smart.

He wants to cry, he wants to break something, to lie down and sleep and wake up out of this mess. How hard is that to ask for? How hard is that to be achieved?

 

Things didn’t pan out right. It’s all her fault. She eliminated the thug leader, destroyed the root cause of it all, and yet she still failed.

He knows who she is, why she is here, but he wants a kill and he will not stop till he gets one.

She is not smart, she is stupid, a failure, a cancer hiding in the heart of the body.

Fusho is Sakura, and Sakura is dead. Who is she, what is she doing, is this all worth it? She tried, oh god she tried so hard to get that man away from the future, to scare him away to achieve his self given mission to fix the Mist, to show him that this is not the right path to go.

She feels the sickness settle in her stomach, heavy and bringing her down. This is for the future, he cannot take her down again, not again, not like that. She wishes to remain as Fusho to her squadron, to remain anonymous in the face of what has to become, yet only fate is the teller of that.

The blade lies rusted in the holster, bloodied under that rushed cleaning she had given it moments prior.

Zabuza says something she does not listen to, his voice like two rocks clipping against each other, a monstrous strength hidden beneath that mask.

He may be fast, and he may have had the higher hand of underestimation, but he does not hold the hand that feeds as he believes, and for the first time in her life she revels in the satisfaction of his underestimation towards her.

It is quick, and he doesn’t put much of a fight, Haku leaps towards her opposed to his natural far ranged style, and is quickly forced into a defensive position. He is weak, compared to her. Sakura’s brute strength alone pushes him back and back, his quick reactions his only saving grace.

He attempts to leap out of the way, but a fist to the gut stops him. He tries to snag a few senbon from his pouch, her hands grapple at his wrist and twist, the poisoned needles falling lifelessly to the wet cement. Haku drops down and rolls back followed by her heavy steps, and keeps rolling until his back hits the railings of the bridge.

“You killed Master Zabuza,” He spits out, his young voice muffled slightly behind his mask, “Kill me, but I will not lay down to you, I will not prove myself innocent and beg for forgiveness. Kill me, and let this be over. Kill me.”

Sakura clenches her fist tighter, and rears back. Her fist connects with the cement wall behind him, and he shudders down a screech as the material explodes around him. Grasping at his haori, she yanks him closer to her face.

“I do not perform mercy kills on a soldier that deserves no mercy,” she seethes between her teeth, voice low and dangerous, “I will walk away, but the moment you lay a hand on those Leaf ninja I will shatter your ribs and leave you in the ocean. Understood?”  
He is hesitant, her hands pull him closer, his mask barely pressing against her face. “Am I understood?”

“Yessir!” 

“Good.” Sakura releases him. He stands, and is gone the next moment. Now, it is just Sakura and her squadron. Now, she must figure a new plan out.

 

With that problem solved, Kakashi can sleep decently tonight. With Zabuza dead, his ‘weapon’ missing, and that strange shinobi gone, there is a weight lifted off his shoulders.

Except… he knows that something is wrong. It is dismissed as the loss of his student.

Naruto and Sasuke are quiet, on the walk to Tazuna’s home, a sullen look resonating deep in their chakra.

**Author's Note:**

> This is a pseudo-abandoned work, I will not continue this. Don't ask me to continue this. Feel free to take inspiration, though.
> 
> Edit(10/24/19); ive made a sakura centric discord server! pls join lol fuuinjutsu for the heart


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